The Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Düsseldorf issued a judgment on 7 March 2025 in the case UPC_CFI_459/2023 concerning European Patent
EP 2 011 218 B1. The dispute involved Tridonic GmbH & Co. KG as the plaintiff and CUPOWER Shenzhen Xiezhen Electronics Co., Ltd. and CUPOWER Europe GmbH as the defendants. The case centered on an infringement action and an accompanying counterclaim for revocation.
The central issue before the court was whether new lines of arguments against the validity of the patent, raised for the first time during the oral proceedings, could be considered. The Local Division firmly rejected the introduction of such last-minute arguments, emphasizing the principle that procedural fairness and predictability must be upheld.
The Local Division held that new attacks on patent validity presented only at the oral hearing were inadmissible. The court stressed that procedural strategy based on surprise tactics is incompatible with the Rules of Procedure of the UPC. The ruling is consistent with the general principle that legal arguments must be raised at the earliest possible stage of the proceedings to allow fair preparation for all parties involved.
Consequently, the court dismissed the late invalidity arguments.
As a side note, had the new invalidity arguments been introduced earlier - with the reply to the statement of defense (i.e., in counterclaim proceedings, the reply to the defense to the counterclaim for revocation) - the Düsseldorf Division appears to have been more lenient (see paragraph bridging pages 43 and 44, C.I.). However, the court still referred to the particularly strict approach of the Paris Central Division on this matter, as seen in UPC_CFI_265/2023, CD Paris, judgment of 29 July 2024, paras. 23 et seq.
